


Operation Procrastination

by Leahelisabeth (fortheloveofcamelot)



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Bitty Writes His Thesis, Fluff, High Heels, Lingerie, M/M, Sexting, Wedding Planning, procrastination
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:20:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24494158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fortheloveofcamelot/pseuds/Leahelisabeth
Summary: Five times Bitty procrastinated on writing his thesis and one time it didn't work.
Relationships: Eric "Bitty" Bittle/Jack Zimmermann
Comments: 6
Kudos: 153
Collections: OMGCP Reverse Bang 2020





	Operation Procrastination

**Author's Note:**

> So excited to finally post my offering for the Check Please Reverse Big Bang! Check out the amazing art by @flybittybooty [here](https://flybittybooty.tumblr.com/post/619725695267028992/this-is-my-piece-for-the-omgcpreversebang-thanks). Also, thank you so much to my betas, [edgarallanrose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/edgarallanrose/pseuds/edgarallanrose) and [RabbitRunnah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RabbitRunnah/pseuds/RabbitRunnah), for being so encouraging and really helping me bring this fic to life.

**1**

Bitty flopped forward, not caring as his forehead added an unintelligible keysmash at the end of his introduction. Five sentences. That was all he had written. To be honest, only one of them was any good. It had been three hours and he could feel his brain leaking messily out of his ears. Outside the window, he could hear Nursey and Dex in a no-holds-barred, sudden death snowball fight. He didn’t really want to join them, but damn it, he did want to have fun. But no, this was the beginning of his last semester. He had to write this thesis and he knew he couldn’t leave this one for the night before the due date like every other paper he’d written during his university career.

He smacked his lips, grimacing at the stale taste in his mouth. He could take a short break, just a few minutes to go downstairs and get a drink. He thought there were a couple sodas in the fridge leftover from last night’s takeout. He missed having Jack across the hall, but at least there would be no one to chirp him about empty calories and the dangers of refined sugar.

There was no soda in the fridge. There was a six pack of beer but Wicks had bought it and he had shit taste in beer. Nursey was a big fan of writing drunk and editing sober but Bitty had never been able to bring himself to try it, mainly because by the time he was finished writing, it was far too close to the deadline to do any editing, sober or otherwise.

They needed to go grocery shopping. Bitty poked through the cupboards, looking for drink crystals, coffee that hadn’t gone stale, anything. He found a couple tea bags and sighed before turning on the kettle. It would have to do.

While he waited for the kettle to boil, he leaned back on the counter and looked around the kitchen. One of the boys had brought home a bag of apples and it was on its last legs. Bitty could see the brown spots from across the room. There were still a couple hours before dinner. He could bake a quick pie and still have time to get back upstairs. And he needed fuel if he was going to get anything done.

The pie didn’t take long. He popped it into the oven and set the timer. He should go back upstairs...but he was the only one home. What if he didn’t hear the timer from his room? What if no one came home and the pie burned and destroyed the beautiful oven Jack had given him?

He decided to grab his laptop and work in the kitchen, but as he was heading upstairs, his eye caught on a plastic bag sitting by the door. He snooped through it and found chocolate chips, cocoa, and walnuts, and he remembered he’d promised Chowder a batch of brownies that he could take over to Farmer’s and well, he could whip up a batter in no time and still have plenty left for his thesis.

The pie was cooling on the counter and the brownies had gone in. Bitty definitely had no more excuses left. It was time to buckle down and get some work done. But his brownies would be better with a peanut butter sauce. That wouldn’t take long.

The peanut butter sauce was finished and there were still ten minutes left on the timer for the brownies, just enough time to whip up a batch of peanut butter oatmeal cookies. But there might not be enough pie for everyone and not everybody liked peanut butter cookies. He needed something with a little more universal appeal. Chocolate chip cookies it was.

He was sliding the last tray of perfectly golden brown cookies out of the oven when Dex popped his head in through the door. “We’re heading down to the dining hall if you want to join.”

Startled, Bitty looked at the clock. He was going to have to hurry if he wanted to eat before his evening class. He looked around the kitchen at the counters, covered in a thick layer of cooling baked goods. He would have to work extra hard on his thesis tomorrow.

**2**

Bitty pouted. He’d written the first section of his thesis. It had taken blood, sweat, and more tears than he could count...and he hated every word of it. Why was it, exactly, that he had no trouble telling Jack all about it and getting excited about his topic, but the moment he sat down in front of a computer screen, all motivation and inspiration vanished? He still had time to work on it before it was due, even though winter had given way to spring and he could hear birds outside his window as they sat in the trees among the brand new buds and unfurling leaves.

“‘The method of baking employed by the early colonists was the method of baking that they liked.’ What the fuck, Bittle?” he moaned, dropping his head into his hands. “That doesn’t even make sense. And now I’m talking to myself.”

A loud thunk at the window startled him out of his mini panic and he jumped up to look outside. On the roof outside his window was a little bird. He had obviously flown into the window and he wasn’t moving.

Tears prickled in Bitty’s eyes. He had already been halfway to crying and this just felt like the last straw. He flung the window open and gathered the little bird into his hands. It was still breathing, its tiny chest rising and falling rapidly. The wings looked straight and Bitty didn’t think anything was broken. Hopefully it was just stunned.

He went into the bathroom and grabbed the gross hand towel that Shitty had left behind and made a little nest on his desk, setting the bird carefully on the warm, soft surface. He didn’t know what to do next. What if it was really hurt? How could he fix this? Birds didn’t eat pie, did they?

He closed the window where he had been typing his thesis and pulled up the browser to research. Most things he found said not to actually touch the bird with his hands but it was already too late for that. He hoped he hadn’t already fucked everything up.

He left the bird sitting on his desk and hunted through his closet for an old shoe box. He only had one box, holding the Louboutins Jack had bought him for Christmas. He’d never actually worn them; he was waiting for the right occasion. He waffled for a moment, not wanting them to just sit on the floor like some other common pair of shoes, but his worry for the bird won out.

He set the shoes on the floor, making sure not to just throw them in the jumble of clothes that had fallen off the hangers or that didn’t have a set place to live.  _ I’ll find a place for you _ , he promised the shoes. The website said to cut holes in the box and put the bird inside in the dark. He didn’t have scissors so he ran downstairs and grabbed a kitchen knife. It was a hack job but the bird likely didn’t care.

He carefully picked up the bird and placed it inside the box, closing the lid. The website also said he didn’t have to watch the bird, just check on it every half hour or so until it woke up. He tried to keep writing during those breaks but it just didn’t work. He couldn’t focus until he knew if the bird would make it.

About an hour and a half into his vigil, he heard some chirping from inside the box. He carefully carried it down the stairs and into the backyard. He pulled the lid off and backed away quickly. The bird hopped around the box a few times, testing its wings.

Bitty’s heart was in his throat. Maybe it couldn’t fly. Maybe he’d been too late to save it. He was just resigning himself to becoming a full time bird dad when it chirped loudly and flew up into the trees. 

Bitty sighed in relief. He caught a glimpse of the clock on the stove on his way back upstairs and groaned as he realized he had lost yet another complete afternoon of time to work on his thesis. Tomorrow. He would sit down and write something that he liked tomorrow.

**3**

After losing an entire day to a hurt bird, Bitty knew it was time to buckle down and get shit done. He tried; he really did. He even managed to remain focussed for the length of a single paragraph. But then he caught a glint of red out of the corner of his eye and remembered that his precious Louboutins were still sitting on the floor of his closet like some other common shoe. And come to think of it, his closet really could use some work. He was a university student, not an animal. Mama would have a fit if she could see the mess that he had adjusted to living in.

He looked back at his laptop. He really did need to write...but he needed to do this too. What if he actually ruined a beautiful and expensive gift from Jack because he was too lazy to organize his closet? It wouldn’t take long. He could do both.

He started with a load of laundry. It had been too long since he had washed everything. His mother would be shocked and horrified if she knew how many times he’d recently done loads of only socks and underwear and relied on the sniff test for all other items of clothing.

Then he pulled everything else out of the closet and started sorting it into keep, donate, or toss piles. Lots of things went into the keep pile, every Samwell shirt he owned, all of his teeny tiny shorts, no matter how worn or threadbare. He grinned remembering the heat in Jack’s eyes whenever he wore them. He had a couple jerseys from Jack, and lots of button up dress shirts that he used to wear to church every Sunday.

In the toss pile, he dropped a couple of faded, silk screen t-shirts from the bible camp he had worked at during the summers. After coming out publicly, they had sent him an email asking him not to reapply that summer. For a minute, he had the wild and crazy idea to take a bunch of pictures in them and post them online, just to see if they were still following him, watching him to make sure he didn’t ruin their precious little Christian reputation. But he was better than that. He was happier now than they could ever be with their narrow-minded view of the world and he didn’t need to rub it in. It felt good to get rid of them.

He saw a bit of black lace that he didn’t recognize and pulled it out of the pile. He was holding a pair of lace boyshorts and they looked to be close to his size. They were probably Lardo’s. She’d thrown a few things in with his laundry when she’d visited last. He should put them aside for her the next time she visited...but as he looked at them, he had an idea.

He grabbed one of Jack’s jerseys and those beautiful red-heeled shoes and, silently apologizing to Lardo, he pulled the snug black lace up over his hips. It felt weird. The lace underwear was pretty tight and he just knew the lace was going to leave red marks on his skin. He was about to chicken out and take them off again when he caught a glimpse of himself in the full length mirror on the inside of his closet door. It was...pretty hot. The lace was revealing without completely exposing him. The contrast of the black against his pale skin was eye-catching too.

Before he could think better of it, he pulled the jersey over his head and slipped his feet into the shoes. He tottered a bit. He was used to balancing on skate blades but they weren’t six inches off the ground. He stood and looked at himself in the mirror. The jersey was a little long, skimming his thighs just below the edge of the lace. He draped his right arm up over his head and cocked his left hip so the jersey rode up on the right side.

He could see his face turning tomato red in the mirror. Bitty had been called cute by so many people and he had pretty much resigned himself to it. He was sweet and adorable and warm but never sexy. For the first time, he looked at himself and he thought maybe he had been wrong about that.

He picked up his phone in trembling fingers and swiped up to open the camera. He reset his pose and snapped a quick shot. The feel of the lace rubbing against sensitive skin was starting to make him hard and maybe a little braver. He arched his back and pushed his hips forward. It was a good pose but it was hard to take the picture himself.

He pulled out his desk chair and sat on the edge of it, spreading his legs so his bulge was on display. That was better. Then he lay back on his bed, rucking up the jersey to reveal his abs, and bit his lip seductively at the camera.

He had one more idea. He stood, facing away from the mirror, and bent over as if he had dropped something. He peeked back toward the mirror, again, trying to look seductive, and snapped another photo.

He sat down on his bed to scroll back through and it was undeniable: He, Eric Bittle, was one sexy-ass bitch.

He should take it all off, put it away, put on his regular clothing and sit down at the desk to keep plugging away at his thesis, but he still had a few moments of bravery left. He copied all the photos into his chat with Jack and pressed send.

“Shit,” Bitty said. Jack was on a roadie. It was probably time for his afternoon nap. He shouldn’t have sent the photos now. Bitty was stupid.

And Jack was calling.

Bitty entertained the thought of throwing his phone across the room and hiding forever; anything was better than being chastised by his boyfriend for being a distraction. Sheepishly, he accepted the video call.

Jack looked wild. His pupils were blown wide and his face was red.

“Fuck, Bits, do you have any idea what you just did to me?” Jack rasped.

“Sorry,” Bitty said, cringing a little.

“Fuck, never apologize. You’re so hot, Bits. If I were there right now, I’d rip those clothes off you and fuck you.”

Bitty squeaked.

“Keep the shoes on though. You could wrap those gorgeous long legs right around me. Fuck,” Jack moaned.

Bitty was so hard it hurt. “What else do you want to do to me?” he asked.

Later, Bitty tossed Lardo’s ruined underwear in the toss pile. It had been so worth it. Jack even scored a double hat trick in that night’s game. But Bitty had made absolutely zero progress on his thesis.

**4**

Bitty gave into the procrastination impulses. The Haus had never been cleaner. He had washed the walls, the curtains, the windows inside and out. He had even gotten down on his hands and knees and scrubbed the grout until it was white again between the faded tiles.

But he couldn’t go on. For one, his hands were dry and cracked and bleeding from the hours spent using harsh cleaning solutions without gloves. The other reason was the time; he had six weeks remaining until this paper was due, and the first draft was due significantly sooner than that. Currently, he had little more than a disorganized outline. He had taken to moving sections around when he had no other inspiration. It made him feel like he was at least accomplishing something.

His phone pinged and he almost threw it on the floor in his haste to open his messages. Shitty had sent a link in the group chat.

**None other than the fucking beaut himself!!!!!!!**

Bitty rolled his eyes but he was curious so he clicked the link. A quiz popped up: “Who’s Your Hockey Boyfriend?”

_ I don’t need to take this quiz. I already know the answer _

But he really was curious, and being distracted by the quiz might keep him from being productive. He could waste five minutes now and then be really focussed for the rest of the afternoon.

There were ten questions. The first one asked what team and of course Bitty picked Falconers. Other questions asked things like “on a scale of 1-10, how romantic is your bf?” “pick the song lyric,” or “what style of gift-giver is your bf?” Bitty answered the final question and nearly threw his phone across the room. His hockey boyfriend was Kent Parson.

Bitty incredulously read the little blurb that accompanied the picture of Kent. “Your boyfriend is Kent Parson. You love the bad boy with a heart of gold. You’ll never see him running around with models because this boy is not swayed by shallow beauty. But in private, you know he dials that charm up to eleven and treats you like the queen you are.”

“Bullshit,” Bitty said. He switched back over to the group chat, thumbs typing so furiously he was surprised they didn’t crack the screen.

_ hey shits did you take a screenshot _

A couple seconds later, a picture popped up in the chat. “Your boyfriend is Jack Zimmermann. Your ideal of a perfect boyfriend is the unattainable guy. He’s got perfect abs, a perfect ass, and impeccable stats. He’s Hockey Royalty and he knows it. You might not get much in the way of romance but you won’t care. You’ll be too busy showing him off to everyone you know.”

Bitty sputtered. Who made this quiz? He would fight them. He found it on Tumblr and went to the blog it came from. Whoever this “parsersgirl420” was, they didn’t know shit. Their bio was pretty standard stuff. “Hockey fan and lover of all things Kent Parson. My writing tag is #oh look i wrote.”

With a bit of curiosity, he clicked on the tag to read through her fic tag. They were mostly Kent/reader. Jack appeared in a few of them as the villain, either trying to seduce Kent and make him gay, or by trying to break up all of Kent’s heterosexual relationships. The worst one was a fic titled “5 reasons Kent Parson is the most romantic man in Hockey.”

He switched over to a new Word document and started typing furiously without pause. Three hours later, he typed two more words and sat back silently. He couldn’t post it. It was raw, real, vulnerable. It showed exactly who Jack was and how lucky Bitty was to be loved by him. It was 6000 words of Bitty’s heart, scattered on the page.

He went back up to the top and titled it “5 reasons Jack Zimmermann is the most romantic man in Hockey,” before saving it and closing the document. He switched back to the window with his thesis, but his eyes were tired from staring at a screen for hours and his hands were sore from typing and he knew he’d lost yet another afternoon.

**5**

Bitty was still getting nowhere with his thesis and he was starting to feel the pressure. Atley was nagging him for his first draft. He’d managed to throw her off with yet another bribery pie but he knew his days of using that trick were numbered.

Jack had suggested a change of scenery and so Bitty was spending the weekend in Providence, hoping that he would find fewer distractions in a cleaner and less cluttered and chaotic environment.

“I didn’t even buy any butter,” Jack said as Bitty carried his duffel in and dropped it in the middle of the floor. “We will be eating takeout the whole weekend. There is no food to be found.”

Bitty pouted. “But I like cooking for you.”

Jack leaned forward and planted a soft kiss on Bitty’s lower lip. “I know, bud; it’s for your own good.”

Bitty sighed. “We hardly get to hang out in person, and when we do, I have to do stupid homework.”

“Tell you what,” Jack said, “you get a lot of stupid homework done, and tonight, I’ll wear the heels.”

“Your feet are like two sizes bigger than mine.” Bitty looked up at him skeptically.

Jack leaned forward and whispered huskily in his ear. “Maybe I saw how hot you looked and went out and bought my own pair.”

Bitty grabbed Jack by the collar and pulled him down into a bruising kiss. Jack allowed it for a few scorching moments before he reluctantly pulled back.

“Stupid homework first, sex heels later,” Jack said. “I’ve got a workout planned for the afternoon so you won’t have any distractions.”

Bitty sighed and set up his laptop as Jack grabbed his water bottle and left the apartment.

It worked, at least at first. Bitty managed to get into a decent rhythm for the first half hour and he was starting to think things wouldn’t be so bad. But then he let his guard down. It happened innocently. He was looking up the specifics of a certain sourdough recipe, which had him researching methods for seasoning cast iron, which brought him to the Williams Sonoma website to browse Le Creuset cookware. And it was fine. He had been working hard. He could take a short break and go right back to writing.

He was trying to decide if he’d prefer Samwell red or Falconers blue when he scrolled to the bottom of the page and saw a link that said “The One,” and the description below said that creating a registry with Williams Sonoma meant he could add items from Pottery Barn and other places. Bitty hesitated before clicking. His little break was now pushing twenty minutes and he didn’t have as much written as he had hoped before Jack returned. But fuck it, he was curious. He filled in his name and Jack’s, picked a date approximately two years in the future as their wedding date, and went back to browsing the site with new excitement. There were so many things he could see himself using in this house. Jack’s kitchen had gotten better. He couldn’t exactly live with his bachelor pad with one set of dishes, a frying pan and a cooking pot. But Bitty was thinking about the future now, unified colour schemes for his baking videos, fancy dishes for entertaining or for date nights at home, cookie cutters the perfect shape for clumsy little fingers... Now Bitty was getting way ahead of himself.

Jack walked in, sweaty and glowing from his workout and Bitty panicked, slamming the lid of his laptop closed and staring guiltily at Jack.

“Okay,” Jack said slowly. “What were you up to?”

“Nothing,” Bitty said, defensive.

Jack came closer and reached for the laptop. Bitty put his hand on top and pressed down.

“Were you watching porn?” Jack asked, teasing.

“Yes!” Bitty shouted, too quickly. “So much porn. Furry porn.”

Jack snorted. “I’m into it; can I see?”

Bitty gasped. “You are not.”

Jack grinned. “I could be.” He leaned down and kissed Bitty softly.

Bitty melted into the kiss, realizing too late that it had been a distraction. Jack had opened up the lid and was staring at the screen.

“I wasn’t aware we’d picked a date,” Jack said, a weird, strangled note in his voice.

“I’m sorry. I’m just dreaming. I’m not trying to push you into anything you don’t want to do—” Bitty babbled until Jack cut him off with another kiss.

“It’s okay, Bits. I already told you I want those future steps. In fact, I may have a little...euh...confession of my own.” Jack pulled out his phone and tapped it a few times before turning the screen to face Bitty. There was a secret Pinterest board right there, in full colour, and titled “Our Wedding.”

“Oh, Jack,” Bitty said, taking the phone and scrolling down. “Flowers? Colours? Tux ideas? You’ve put a lot of thought into this.”

Jack shrugged. “I know we don’t have any concrete plans. And I don’t think we should necessarily make those plans right now, but you should know that for me, it’s not an  _ if _ , it’s a  _ when _ .”

Bitty felt tears pricking behind his eyes and he buried his head in Jack’s chest, completely overwhelmed.

“I love you, Jack,” he mumbled into the smooth fabric of Jack’s workout shirt.

“Love you too, Bits,” Jack said. He picked Bitty up and set him on the counter. Bitty wrapped his legs around Jack’s waist and quickly forgot that he was still supposed to be working on his thesis.

**+1**

****

Bitty was in denial. He had to have a rough draft on Atley’s desk by the end of the weekend and she had been abundantly clear that she would not accept another pie, no matter how delicious it was.

His team was doing their best to keep him on track. The oven had been disabled so he couldn’t even turn it on. Every kitchen on campus was plastered with posters of his face so he couldn’t go to one of them as a refuge.

Dex, bless his heart, had stolen his laptop, printed out all his online sources, and put a parental lock on his internet so he couldn’t go to any of his procrastination sites. He’d also taken all of the social media apps off his phone and locked the store so he couldn’t download them again. He could text and call but that was about it. Every time he texted someone, they replied with  _ are you working on your thesis? _

Bitty was trying. He really was. He kept looking back and forth between his sources and his notes and the still empty screen. He wanted to write. He wanted to be finished. Jack had promised him a weekend away once he was done and Bitty was so excited to have Jack all to himself without this awful assignment hanging over his head. But to get there, the only way out was through, and Bitty didn’t think he was going to make it.

_ I can’t do this _

**sure you can, bud. I believe in you.**

_ I’ll go crazy first _

**what was your topic again? I was trying to explain it to Tater but I couldn’t remember.**

_ I’ve told you this already but okay. So basically… _

Bitty’s fingers flew over his keyboard. He had his outline right there and it wasn’t difficult to expand a little as he texted. Why couldn’t writing this damn thing be as easy as telling Jack about it?

In the end, he wasn’t not sure how long he texted but by the time he looked up from his phone, the sky had gone dark and his room with it. His stomach growled fiercely and his eyes ached. He wondered if he could sneak into the kitchen to find some leftovers without anyone tackling him to the ground and dragging him back into his bedroom again.

Another notification pinged on his phone, an email this time. It was from Jack and the subject read “Thesis rough draft.” He groaned and flopped face first into his covers. He was tempted to just delete it, not wanting yet another source of pressure and guilt from someone who loved him, but he clicked on it instead.

Hey Bits,

Took your texts and put them in a google doc. I think if you clean it up a little, take out the emojis, make the language a little more formal, you can submit this as your rough draft.

Love Jack

Bitty sat up. He opened the email on his laptop and clicked on the link and there it was, his words, all organized into something legible and, more importantly, submittable.

He didn’t think, just hit call on his phone and listened to it ring.

“Bits?” Jack’s voice came through the speaker on his phone.

“Oh, honey,” Bitty breathed, practically crying in relief. “Thank you.”

“Oh, haha, you got my email?” Jack chuckled.

“This boy,” Bitty said. “Of course I got your email. You just saved my entire life. When I see you again—”

“Is that Bitty baker?” Tater’s loud voice boomed through the speaker. “Let me talk.”

“Damn it,” Jack said in a muffled voice. “Give that back.”

“You like present?” Tater asked. “I helped. I text ‘okay’ and ‘yeah’ and ‘hmmm.’ Is interesting topic.”

Bitty laughed, relief making him giddy. “You’re getting a pie when you get home from your roadie.”

“Sw’awes!” Tater said. “I want blueberry, no, lemon, no, blueberry and lemon.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Okay, I give you back to Jack. He about to tackle me,” Tater said before grunting. Bitty could hear the sound of someone falling on the floor, cursing and laughing.

“Hey, I’ve got to get some sleep. We’re catching an early flight tomorrow,” Jack said. “I love you.”

“I love you too, sweetpea,” Bitty said. “And really, thank you. It’s starting to feel real, you know. I’m really graduating in a few weeks. I’m not going to be a student anymore. It’s...kinda scary.”

“Moving in with me is scary?” Jack asked.

“Well, no, I didn’t mean that part,” Bitty protested.

“Then what, having time to dedicate to your vlog?” Jack persisted.

“No, you know I’m excited about that part. I’m even thinking of putting together a cookbook once I have the time,” Bitty admitted.

“Is it the next steps?” Jack asked.

A warm sensation flooded through Bitty and he thought about the wedding registry he hadn’t deleted and the Pinterest board that Jack had invited him to edit that was growing every day. “No, I guess that doesn’t really scare me either.”

There was a smile in Jack’s voice and Bitty could picture it— soft, warm, full of love. “I’ll see you this weekend, okay? We’ll celebrate.”

“Yeah,” Bitty said. “Goodnight, honey.”

“‘Night.”

Jack hung up and Bitty hugged his phone to his chest for a moment, relishing in the warmth of being known and loved. Then he got up and wandered downstairs to find Dex. There was an oven that needed to be hooked up.


End file.
